Q. Is Christ Jesus the animating spirit of our sun?

 

P. I do not know, but surmise that it is nearer the truth than more matter-of-fact theories. I know that the heavenly bodies have souls and are spirits as men have and are. These are the great planetary spirits. The star-beings are really spirits of the nature of the sun­spirit—celestial beings. There are also inter-planetary beings and inter-stellar spirits. The macrocosm, no less than the microcosm, is infinite—infinitely great, infinitely minute. It is not my knowledge, it is my belief verging on certainty, that the Logos, in whom dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily, is the centre and circumference of our solar system. But what transcends that conception I dare not attempt to fathom. Imagination reels in the contemplation of what lies all around us.

 

God bless and keep you!                                               PHILEMON.

 

 

January 1917.

Philemon. I am here.

 

Q. If you and I can hold communion like this, why not all those friends in close sympathy with one another in the presence of a sensitive able to transmit thought messages?

 

P. Why can I speak thus, and not others in closest love and sympathy, is one of those divine mysteries to which faith must bow. I will give you my thought—those others so near to you, to me, have not yet found, and may never find, the mind and hand that respond to them as those of the scribe to myself. I wanted, I wished, I willed otherwise. But I had (as have others before me) to accept the way that was open, and to use the means at hand. I should have wished to express myself to a group, visibly and tangibly, and not to have to pass my thoughts slowly and at second hand.

 

Q. Are you communicating more freely, more satisfactorily, elsewhere?

 

P. Where I have lived in the body, spoken, thought, and prayed, I have, in common with all living beings, left images, pictures, that may be galvanised into the semblance of life when I direct my thought or attention to the old persons and places. But much that is regarded as coming from me now is merely the cast-off, effete resultant of past activities, only slightly permeated with my living, vital, ascended self. Some of the communications received are largely due to past associations much clogged and hampered by self-directed thoughts.

 

When writing here this objection does not hold good to anything like the same extent. The quality is purer.

 

Q. Have you shown a materialised form to any of your friends?

 

P. I have shown, I believe, an etherealised body to several friends; but I should not care to really materialise unless some most vital spiritual service, or rather duty, demanded it. Then I would try to do so, for I have modified many of my ideas since my ascension, that among others.

 

Q. By whom would you like your life to be written? P. I should like a life written by J. or M., or someone not of my own community of thought and doctrine.

 

I loved J.'s writings, and knew him. That is why I want him or M. But there must be others—monographs are the best thing; then a soul who knew and understood me will combine these sections into a whole. To do anything or anyone justice, one must view it or him from outside, as well as from the intimate knowledge of spiritual and mental friendship—or rather I should say kinship. I beg you, my dear friend, to make your contributions to the finished whole, which can never be completed lacking your tribute of love and friendship.

 

I cannot give names through this scribe; I can only give associations that already exist. I made her see Hibbert Journal. Had she not known of such a publication she could only have received a general notion. I want things done by those who feel impelled to do them. I have a horror of the "pious" biographer, one chosen as "fit" for such an honoured task."

 

Heaven defend me! I think I should contrive some disaster to overtake writer and MS.; a dog "Diamond" incident would not hurt the world, and would relieve my feelings!

 

You see, here, in this borderland, we feel much more vividly, and can be easier helped and hurt, than when protected by the material envelope of the body. That is why comparatively few return to the earth-sphere. They would reap sorrow rather than joy. It is not pleasant to feel that your place is so soon filled, that you have become a "blessed memory" when you are more palpitating with life and love and light than ever before.

 

I want to say that the Church, our beloved but very faulty, very erring Mother, can only prove and continue to prove a ghastly failure while she retains, unrescinded, the awful doctrine of hopelessness for those who pass on, outside of, or at enmity with, her communion. To the learned we tell the truth. To the simple, to the little children in the faith, we still deal out the old dogmas, and so drive them to seek refuge, sometimes in very doubtful folds of faith and practice. I must write no more now, except to tell you that I do come into touch with other friends, but only partially. Some have erected certain insuperable barriers between themselves and the emancipated soul, by what are termed "truths," basic truths of Theosophy, etc. Others have much—nearly all, in fact—to learn with regard to the world with which they believe themselves to be in daily communion. So they are; but much that they believe to be imparted to them is merely, as it were, their own mental conception mirrored forth in their own objective consciousness. God bless and keep you! PHILEMON.

January 1917.

Philemon greets you.

 

Q. How do you feel things are going? Is there any desire for peace among our foes?

 

P. This peace agitation is the smoke arising from an actual fire. The Teutons are feeling the pinch where of all places they dread it most, in their cupboards and on their hearths. The civilians are being slowly starved. They hate scarcity and detest cold; and the bulk of the population is both cold and hungry. The soldiers, too, are rebelling against the brute rule of their officers. They kill them when they dare. That is a source of weakness of which you do not hear. They, the soldiers, contrast their officers with those of the Allies, and are not pleased. This spirit is growing. A Teuton victim of his own men's just revenge, if revenge be ever just, has told me this. Revolt is not a sin in such cases.

 

Q. Are you in touch with the spirits of the German slain?

 

P. I am a missionary spirit, and know no divisions. This soul cried out to me, and I came to his aid. He had been over some time, wandering in darkness. I was with others, going into the highways and hedges of the "borderland," and met this and other poor remnants of humanity cast on the void by this great and awful, yet holy, war.

 

Q. How much of the future do you see?

 

P. I can see the future to some extent, but only from where I am. I cannot rise above the conflict if I would do my work, and therefore see only just around me. But from what I do see, I fear there can be no cessation until more blood has been spilled.

 

Q. Is the spirit of K. with you on the other side?

 

P. K. is with us, and of us, the "great majority." But his spirit is directing, and sustaining, and encouraging the troops in Egypt. You do not know how much need for vigilance has existed there. And K. has been there all the time. He is now at Kut, and will bring about a denouement in that part of the world which will have the most vital results. His friend F. has never left him, never. And the two are much amused at being so often taken for angels when they bring help to those lost in the scorching desert. But angels they are, of a very substantial order. K. is much changed. Out of his body he is a very emancipated, responsive spirit. He fell on my neck and kissed me, but said I was wrong to have taken his part. He had grown impervious to the logic of changing circumstances. His brain would not adapt itself. Physical incrustations hindered the spirit's outlook, as opaque windows shut out the landscape.

 

Q. Is the communication you hold with K. in the nature of speech?

 

P. Yes, we have speech, in the sense that our thoughts are actually pictorial. He thinks; I see.

 

Q. Is it possible for you to see a man who is still alive in the body on earth functioning as a spirit on your plane?

 

P. It is possible for a spirit, still in the body, to manifest at seances, to "materialise," to be photographed, to be seen in spirit form—in short, to appear just as if death had taken place; and if we can accept "spirit" testimony, it is possible for spirits to believe that this manifesting spirit is discarnate when all the time death has not supervened. I can only tell you that K., as I have seen him, believes himself "dead," even as I am, and that to me he is in no wise different from those whose dead shells I myself have seen committed to the earth. I am not so far away as to be able to look down and gauge all these differences. I am still in touch with you all and with those like myself. K. is as one of us here, yet I remember all the strange complexities of life, the trance conditions when the spirit roams freed, as it were, from all earthly bonds, and yet returns to its physical tenement once more. We know not as definitely as the simple among you state. The silver cord and the golden bowl are beautiful poetical symbols. I believe K. is arisen, is with us here. He, too, is of that opinion. Yet it is quite possible, as I have already hinted, that invisible bonds might still unite him with the body while yet his whole mental and spiritual activity could be centred on our plane. But it would be a very rare case, just as Mollie Fancher's case was unique in the annals of psychology.

P. The soul of sound, of colour, of fragrance, of taste even—I cannot convey these things, except to say that all these earth joys are almost infinitely multiplied in our world, rightly called heaven. You remember Tyndall—no, I think it was Huxley, who talked of hearing the grass grow. You know about the microphone, which renders a fly's footfall like the tramp of an elephant. Sound is a substance, sound is creative, sound is form. Music is the language of the spheres, the means of intercourse between the worlds of interstellar space. All these glories—even on earth they are such— are minus quantities and qualities compared to their after-death equivalents. These are all that the earth minuses are, plus the heavenly qualities for which you have no name and of which you can only vaguely conceive. They are real, actual as on earth, only more so, infinitely more so. Symbol is our only means of conveying heavenly truths, symbols, colour, and sounds.

 

Q. Are the flowers and gardens a symbol only, or have you the real thing—not only your own thought taking form?

 

P. The flowers, the gardens, the rivers, the mountains, the scenery of our world would exist if none of us from the earth­planet had ever come here.

 

Q. In your world are there only earth souls?

 

P. There are spirits who have never been on earth, in this world. There are beings from all parts of our solar system, but I am not aware that there are any extra-solar-system beings within our radius. Our learned spirits deny its possibility, as your astronomers deny that beings from other planets dwell upon earth. We are none of us spirits in the sense of transcending the stream of events you call time, and the juxtaposition of worlds and objects that men term space.

 

Q. But you are not—even in your world—all equally developed?

 

P. We spirits are not a democracy but a hierarchy—an ordered grade of beings, ascending beyond our capacity even here to follow its upward ranges. But there is no injustice. Each occupies its position by reason of capacity and fitness. Democracy on earth will fail unless it become a brotherhood, older and younger brothers.

 

Q. Can you tell us about the solar systems other than our own?

 

P. I cannot go in thought outside of our system in the sense of attempting to outline other systems, their nature and modes; but of this I am sure: they are like our solar system, and we human spirits shall find ourselves at home in any member of any solar system, because God rules and reigns in all, and we are His offspring.

 

Q. Just as the spectroscope revealed the unity of substance in all even the most distant of stars? P. You have got my thought precisely.

 

Q. Did Christ influence the other members of the solar system?

 

P. He would, I believe, be Lord of the earth only. In what manner He has manifested in other worlds it is not possible for me to say, except that He must have exhibited, or made known to their inhabitants' His transcendent moral and spiritual qualities, as was the case with us; but the needs are different in each world. I have met spirits from all these worlds. The moral and spiritual attributes of those beyond the earth orbit are in advance of our own. Those within the earth orbit are inferior in spiritual evolution to man.

 

Q. Why is this? What is the controlling factor?

 

P. The conditions are better or less advanced, as the case may be. Crude spirit is like other crudities—spirit not at its best: this is a paradox. The Sun, the Christ sphere, the centre whose Light is Jesus Christ—that is spirit at its purest and best. It would follow that the worlds nearest that radiant centre would be the most Christ-like. Not so. Their inhabitants are crude spirits, lacking experience, lacking maturity, lacking all the training necessary to evolve wisdom and goodness. Life is too easy on those worlds, just as existence in the tropics fails to develop a sturdy humanity. The planets further from the centre are the homes of the more developed and ripened spirits. Q. Surely this world is the hardest school of all?

 

P. It would seem that, in a sense, our little earth is really the centre of the Spiritual Universe, for souls that pass through it, having learned its lessons, become leaders and teachers. Joy is their portion, and sorrow is theirs no longer, because they have become co-workers with God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. They understand, and bitterness and disillusionment can never touch them again.

 

Q. But surely very few of us do learn that lesson?

 

P. The majority learn the lesson of earth in proportion to their opportunities; or rather, learn it so far, that the borderland life finishes the education begun on earth. For the advanced soul this earth is hell; for the less evolved the borderland is the place of reaping and consequent repentance.

 

God bless you and keep you! I must now leave you.

PHILEMON .

 

28th January 1917.

 

P. I have kept this hour for you—and myself. I know you prize this imperfect intercourse; yet, believe me, we are nearer than are many who meet face to face. I help you and others, and you and they help me, in ways undreamed of by us when sojourners in the body.

 

Q. Do you know how much I longed to write and thank you, when you were passing away, for all you had done for me 9

 

P. I should like you to write to me sometimes now. Q. How could I do that?

 

P. I will explain. When you are in perplexity, no matter of what nature, write a question or an appeal addressed to me. Then become passive and write my answer, as I would write it, or as you would imagine it. The creative faculty is yours. The passivity would allow of my directing it along the desired channels.

 

Q. Would there not be danger of my deceiving myself in such a process?

 

P. You need not fear that you would be misled. I should assuredly inspire the answer you would imagine. As to the thanks you wished to express, it is not too late. Out of your too grateful heart you can embody what you felt and feel for the benefit of others. For remember that we help others every time we express admiration and love for those who have helped us. I have been very near while you were writing about me, and you have helped me more than you will ever realise till you too are on this side and someone is rendering you the same service. You have enabled me to forgive myself almost all my shortcomings, when you caused

me to see what I had been in your life. And still you are helping me.

 

Q. But, as the years go on, do not the spirits of our loved ones recede from earth 9

 

P. It is not true that the spirits who love recede from earth, while a loved one remains in the body. Rather do they and the loved one become one spirit, one mind, one soul.

 

Q. Can we still join in prayer with you as when on earth?

 

P. The question as to joint petitions is not affected by the transition called death. "Of one mind" is independent of the body. And you and we, agreeing as to an aspiration or a prayer for any object concerning our welfare, or that of each other, can rest assured that such united prayer is as acceptable as if we knelt side by side in the body. The conditions of fulfilment and response are as they ever were.

 

Q. Will you help as in the particular case now on our hearts? You remember Mme. L., for whom you prayed when here? She is suffering greatly. Will you pray that she may go Home soon?— that is, if prayer can alter the appointed hour.

 

P. I will try to go to her myself as well as petitioning the Father's help. I will see if she may go yet. Prayer does alter the appointed hour. Submissive to the divine will, we may ask for the desires of our hearts for ourselves and others.

 

Q. How will you go to her—find her?

 

P. I go to her as I come to you. And their desire for me has made the path of light along which I shall travel right to where they are. Even now, as I leave you, I shall find myself there. Man's extremity is God's opportunity—you will believe I will do this. When you have a thought to send to me, write it down. Why? It gives it form and spiritual substance. Do you not realise that the spoken word is more effectual in certain cases than the mere thought? The beautiful myth of the Hebrew scriptures teaches you this And God said, 'Let there be Light and there was Light.` And Christ "commanded" the evil spirits to depart.

 

In greatest stress the spirit expresses itself in words. In the extremity of fear or anguish the soul cries aloud.

 

The negative side of human experience is always the better portrayed in form, colour, sound. Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno are masterpieces. Hell has furnished themes for the most eloquent divines.

 

But the glorious transcendent bliss of the Beatific Vision can find no expression, no all-satisfying outlet. Paradise Regained is insipid with its pictured saints and angels, cloying and often unmeaning. That is the reason of the conventional in Sacred Art.

 

Q. Was the vision once granted me of that Divine Face a materialisation of my thought, or a symbolic picture projected from a higher sphere?

 

P. "That one face, far from vanish, rather grows, … Becomes my Universe that lives and knows."

 

That vision was your translation of an actual happening. You registered: you did not project. It corresponded with a real, a veridical happening. God bless and keep you now and evermore!

 

PHILEMON.

 

 

February 1917.

Philemon greets you.

 

P. You ask, have I now got at the kernel of the wisdom of the ages, hidden within the husk of exoteric Masonry? I now know little more than when on earth, except that most of the teaching is only symbolical, having as little relation to the truths symbolised as has the plane-surface representation of a three-dimensioned object to that object.

 

Q. Was Jesus Christ an Essene, i.e. of the Freemason Initiates?

 

P. He belonged to them but was not of them. He broke away and insisted on taking the outside world into the innermost of Truth, being aware of the fact that none can receive beyond his native capacity. Those who would keep wisdom from the multitude err just to the degree in which they fail to perceive the truth of what Christ was always insisting upon—that the soul, or rather the spirit of a man, must have unfolded the spiritual senses, before it can apprehend the truths of the Spirit.

 

Q. Then why did Christ speak of truths often so far ahead of their apprehension?

 

P. He spoke of those inner truths to cause their souls to yearn for them, just as the germinating seed strives to reach the light. Truth always precedes us. We follow after, press on, for ever learning, but never able to come to the full knowledge of the Truth. Where I am it is still so.

 

Christ not only did not give all, He did not know all as the Logos, the incarnate Word of God. "Mild he laid His Glory by." What Glory? Of the sun, moon, and stars? No, but of omniscience, and as the Logos He must defer to the Supreme Father. As undifferentiated Spirit there are no limitations.

 

Q. Can you explain more fully what I never quite understood in your teaching of the suffering of God?

 

P. I taught of the suffering of God in and through all the sins and sorrows of humanity, especially in this fearful world-war. I exaggerated and minimised, as I see now, from my own experience. For instance, I know all you suffer on a given occasion; I suffer with and for you. But I suffer not hopelessly and despairingly, because I know the outcome. Just as, in a dream, when the tension is greatest and the stress severest, you remember it is only a dream and thus take comfort, so in similar way I realise the evanescence of the worst that can happen upon earth, and that comforts me. And I joy to think that even so the Father Himself seeth of the